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SUMMARY:Limits of precision in stochastic cell biology - Glenn Vinnicombe\
 , University of Cambridge
DTSTART:20190523T130000Z
DTEND:20190523T140000Z
UID:TALK123778@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Alberto Padoan
DESCRIPTION:We look at two related problems where noise and small numbers 
 provide limitations on the behaviour of cells.\nFirstly "The Poisson box
 ”: For a simple birth death process (constant birth rate\, exponential d
 eaths) it is well known that the variance equals the mean. We conjecture t
 hat for two coupled birth death processes it is not possible for both proc
 esses to simultaneously beat this bound. That is\, if X is controlling Y\,
  and vice versa\, then in order for the variance in Y to be reduced below 
 the Poisson limit then the variance in X must be above it. For cell biolog
 y\, this suggests that large fluctuations in the population of one molecul
 ar species might be a natural consequence of it being implicated in regula
 ting a second. The conjecture is known to hold in some circumstances - a g
 eneral proof remains elusive though. Secondly\, Optimal clocks: How do you
  make accurate clocks from small numbers of independent random events (suc
 h as the production\, degradation or  modification of a molecule). If the 
 number of events/molecules is fixed then the answer is well known - you li
 ne up the events\, one after the other\, all with the same rate. If the nu
 mber of events is itself random then the optimal topology can be much more
  complex. However\, for many distributions the optimal answer is well appr
 oximated by a simple mechanism\, one which we have implemented as part of 
 a synthetic oscillator in E-coli. 
LOCATION:Cambridge University Engineering Department\, Lecture Theatre 6
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